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Archive for January, 2010

I was going to write about the copy-bon I bought at C77, but then I realized that no one is actually interested in that. On the other hand, a small handful of people are interested in Garo, so I felt that it’d be a better use of my time to write up another year of Garo information! If you missed my post on Garo’s 1964 issues (I don’t blame you, it was almost 8 months ago), it can be found here. Once again, names will be in the format of Lastname Firstname, and individual stories in each issue will be listed as Author, “Story”. Also once again, many thanks go out to Shiraishi-san for allowing me to draw from his Garo index, though his site currently appears to be offline. I am fairly sure that the works listed under each month are not listed in the order which they appear in the magazine, but the order they appear in the table of contents on the back side of the front cover.

After some twitter back-and-forths, I’ve decided to try to do a few posts where I introduce some of the stuff I picked up last Comic Market (C77), mostly just to prove to people that you can spend over $500 on interesting doujinshi and have basically none of it be pornographic. (Nozomu Tamaki pushed his ero book on me and who am I to deny that man a sale?)

Of course, to start off this series of posts, I’m going to basically mess up my entire theme by starting with a professionally published book from 2007. I did, however, purchase this book at C77, and it’s the closest one to my laptop, so I’m going to start with the first volume of Manga Ronso Boppatsu (マンガ論争勃発, “Manga Debate Eruption”, alternatively “The Manga Criticism War Erupts!”), authored and edited by Kaoru Nagayama, author of Eromanga Studies (East Press), and the journalist Takashi Hiruma.

Manga Ronso Boppatsu is a collection of nearly fifty short (2-6 page) articles on a variety of topics, most of which center around a single expert or critic’s thoughts on the topic at hand. The authors of the book state that the idea behind the book is to listen to various positions on each of these hot topics, such as the globalization of manga, creators’ rights, and the limiting of free expression in manga, so that constructive discussion can start taking place rather than the mindless, polarized shouting matches that’re all too easy to fall into when debating these issues.

I ended up getting this book (and its sequel) thanks to a tip from Vertical’s Ed Chavez, who sent me off in the direction of the far-left corner of the Big Sight’s East-3 hall, where I found a rather large table staffed by just one guy, who I assume was one of the authors of the book. The placement of their booth was a bit odd to me, as it was down in one of the doujinshi-selling halls (as opposed to the upstairs industry hall), but up against the wall where non-doujinshi products like markers and corn dogs are sold.

This was actually a rather appropriate place to stick these guys, as while their book is released by a professional publisher (Micro Magazine), the subjects covered in the volume either deal directly with doujinshi events like Comiket, or are extremely relevant to the ideals embodied by these events themselves: Spreading manga culture and providing a space where individuals can distribute works of free expression. I’m not just making this stuff up, either–the Comic Market Preparation Committee and the National Doujinshi Event Liaison Group are both prominently given credit for cooperation right next to the authors.

I mentioned that Manga Ronso Boppatsu is the closest book to my laptop, and there’s actually a reason for that; it’s basically the only thing I’ve been turning to as of late when I feel like educating myself on manga. While I’m still working through it, the articles I’ve read so far are all very informative and provide thoughtful views on whatever topic is at hand. Of course, there is a trade-off to gathering the breadth of experts that the book jams into a little over 200 pages, and that is that a relative lack of depth in any given article. However, the articles are all excellent primers on their respective topics given by some of the most respected individuals in their fields. Since it’d be nearly impossible to give my thoughts on each individual article, I’m simply going to spend the rest of this post below the cut translating each article’s title and the primary individual consulted or interviewed (when applicable), and strongly suggest the volume (available for purchase at Amazon and bk1.jp, among other places) to anyone with an interest in a mix of solid journalism and on-the-ground, current commentary on the state of manga and doujinshi.

TV Tokyo pushes back Inukami episode due to world table tennis championships running long, man who set his recorder to automatically tape Inukami during the normal time slot sends cremated remains to TV Tokyo in protest (article)

Episode 26 of Animentary Ketsudan, a right-leaning 1971 historical anime series where the first 25 episodes are about important decisions made during World War II, becomes an episode about Kawakami Tetsuharu’s decisions as the manager of the Yomiuri Giants. Apparently the episode was originally going to be on the final days of the war, but mounting pressure by parent groups over the program’s politics lead to the change.

Nippon TV, Tatsunoko Pro, and Kuri Ippei are sued by Katsukawa Katsushi over claims that they plagarized his character design in their show Doteraman, temporary pulling the show from the airwaves. (Katsukawa would later lose the suit)

Incredible scheduling botch when TBS tries to push Ichigo Mashimaro ep 5 back by 5 minutes in order to air a special live news report on a hurricane. (youtube)

Broadcasting error on 8/15/2007 leads to a 65-minute long frozen frame of Sanji’s eyebrow (One Piece) on one channel. Japanese

Episode 17 of Samurai Troopers is accidentally broadcast in lieu of episode 18, forcing the production company to shorten the show from 40 episodes to 39.(image)

The staff of the Prince of Tennis anime decided to make a staff doujinshi of the series and sell it at summer Comiket 2004, but are forced to give it away for free when the original author takes notice. (scans on nico)

The opening credits of episode 11 of City Hunter 3, broadcast on Christmas Eve 1989, featured a one-frame flash of Aum Shinrikyo leader Asahara Shoko. This was apparently done as an production in-joke, as one-frame insertions like this are present in shows like Urusei Yatsura and Patlabor TV, and there was no backlash at the time. In 1993, Yomiuri TV asked them to remove this for later rebroadcasts as they were afraid that uncredited insertion of living people’s photographs might lead to a image rights issue. However, TBS would later attack Nippon TV over the original sequence during the heated weeks after the Aum sarin gas attacks, saying it was a subliminal message. (Image here, video footage of an indescribably bizarre cult-recruitment tool/Aum video game which features a clip from the video here.)

Not in the thread, but related to the above 2 entries: The 6th show in the Yusha/Brave series, The Brave of Gold Goldran (Might Gaine was show #4), had a one-frame flash in the opening credits of the first 13 episodes where, in the background of a scene where the titular robot could be seen, the phrase “An anime that’s easy to make toys out of / by Sunrise” can be seen handwritten in the background. Oh, those crazy disgruntled Sunrise animators! You can catch it at around 1:12 of this video.

In the order I thought of them. Also these shows are all terrible, so please don’t watch them, except for Magipoka which was brilliant.

1. Samurai Gun.
2. RGB Adventure.
3. Renkin San-kyuu Magical? Poka~n.
4. That one show that was like Mai-HIME, but all the characters were gay men named after rocks.
5. That Hercule Poirot anime where the main character was a girl with a pet duck.

I was going to put Fantastic Children and Project Blue Earth SOS in there, but you guys all watched those, right?